CARICOM advances work on Rapid Alert systems for dangerous goods

The Caribbean Community (CARICOM)’s Rapid Alert System for the Exchange of Information on Dangerous (non-food) Consumer Goods is called CARREX. Consultation are ongoing in all of the member countries of the regional trade and integration bloc before the system is implemented.

At the Guyana consultation, CARICOM’s Consumer Health &Safety Officer, Hilda Kelshall, said that the monitoring system is critical to the region for issuing alerts ad notifications on dangerous goods that may be on the market but that would not be detected by international monitoring systems.

She said CARICOM is seeking to opeationalise the rapid alert system in each member country of CARICOM. The non-existence of the system exposes consumers to dangerous goods, said Evadnie Ennis, Executive Director of the Guyana National Bureau of Standards.

The Guyana consultants on setting up the rapid alert system on dangerous goods was intended to train National Contact persons, IT Professionals and other officials from consumer protection agencies on the use of the CARREX software